


love pride deep fried chicken

by everqueen



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, all the usual when it comes to these idiots i love them so much, angus and taako go on a Quest to fix angus's family curse, cooking! bonding! fun! wrecking shit!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-05 02:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14607186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everqueen/pseuds/everqueen
Summary: Angus McDonald has a family curse.Taako isn't just going to let that stand.(title from "Drops of Jupiter" by Train)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SuccinctAbilities](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuccinctAbilities/gifts).



“Are you sure this is okay, sir?”

“What do you mean, Agnes?” Taako drawls from where he’s sprawled out over three kitchen stools, hat casually tossed and then quickly levitated onto its proper hook.  
Angus stands over the bubbling pot, nervously clutching the shaker of chili powder.

“Sir, I’m not a very good chef! You know what happened with the macarons. Maybe I should be measuring this out?”

“Nonsense, bubbeleh. That’s why you taste as you go. Worst-case scenario, you dump too much in, we feed it to Maggie and stand by with the fantasy camera.”

“You want me to eat something?” Magnus yells from the yard, where he is currently covered in approximately sixteen dogs of different sizes, and Mookie.

“Shut up, Mags!”

“Okay!”

“Uh, okay sir!” Angus chirps, and carefully shakes the chili powder a few times, watching the dark red spice sink into the pot of chili.

“A few more stirs, kiddo, and then we let it simmer for another fifteen minutes before it’s time to chow down.”

Angus obeys as Kravitz wanders into the kitchen, dressed in his weekend slacks. He inhales deeply and presses a kiss into Taako’s hair, arm wrapping around his waist just in time to keep him on the stools. “Hello, dove. What are you making, Angus?”

“We decided to finally fix Ango’s allergy to flavor,” Taako explains.

“You have the allergy to flavor, Taako!” Lup yells from the living room. “Leave the little man alone!”

Taako levers himself up on Kravitz to yell back. “Bold of you to suggest it’s not a problem, Lulu! And just because you use too much garlic in everything doesn’t mean _I_ don’t know flavor!”

“Barold, tell my dear brother who’s the better cook.”

“Oh no, I’m not getting into this,” Barry’s voice says hurriedly, papers shuffling.

“Not after cycle six,” comes Lucretia’s dry tone. (Five years after Story and Song, Taako has allowed himself to be convinced to allow her into their home for family dinners, after several near-shouting matches among him and everyone else except Kravitz, Angus, and Davenport.)

“It smells good,” Kravitz interrupts.

“Hell yeah it does,” Taako says proudly. “‘Course it does, with me teaching him.”

“You were just telling me what to do, sir.”

“Yeah, and it smells baller, cause that’s how we do.” He conjures mage hand for a fist bump and Angus grins and conjures his own with ease.

“When’re we eating?” Merle calls from the garden. “Thought the kid would know how to cook by now.”

“Merle, shouldn’t you be healing Magnus or something?”

“He’s fine,” the dwarf says, waddling through the kitchen, Davenport close behind.

“I dunno, Merle, Mookie did bite him on the arm pretty hard,” the gnome says, although he doesn’t look concerned in the slightest.

The man himself staggers in a few minutes later, Mookie hanging from his arm. Despite the puppy dog eyes from the literal pups and Magnus, Taako doesn’t let the dogs further than the porch. While Magnus goes to the living room to dislodge Mookie, Taako mage hands Angus out of the way to pull the cornbread out of the oven. Magnus and Lucretia are already setting the table while Lup drifts in to toss together the salads: one with raisins for Barry, Davenport, and Merle, one without for Lucretia and Magnus, and one with orange slices for whoever wants fruit too.

“Okay, boychik, ready for the final taste test?” Taako asks, getting off the stools for the first time in two hours. He groans and pouts at Kravitz until the latter rolls his eyes and rubs his shoulders, releasing the tension. “Thanks, bones.”

“I don’t know, sir, what if it isn’t any good?”

“You’ve had me sitting here mentoring you the whole time, Ango. It’ll be great.”

Angus fidgets with the Taako Brand spoon a few seconds more before reluctantly handing it over to the elf, who smiles and dips the spoon slowly and dramatically into the chili. He tastes, careful of his lip gloss.

Angus visibly winces when his face falls.

“I told you, sir, I’m just not a very good cook.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Taako mutters, frowning at the pot. “The smell’s there, but when you put it in your mouth… Lulu!”

“Yeah babe?”

“Come taste this!”

Lup saunters back into the kitchen and plucks the spoon from Taako’s fingers. “So you need my expert palate, huh baby bro?”

For once, Taako ignores this, only nodding when her face crinkles in confusion.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, it’s not very good,” Angus tries, but she waves the spoon at him.

“Not your fault, little man,” she says, eyebrows raised at Taako. “I thought you were supervising?”

“I was!”

“It doesn’t taste like anything, does it?” Angus asks, dejection clear in his voice.

“Huh,” Lup says thoughtfully, and the twins turn as one towards the dining room, where their entire family is crowded, watching curiously.

“Alright, clear out,” Taako says briskly, dusting his hands together and shooing them away.

“But Taako, we’re supposed to have chili!” Magnus whines. “I thought Angus was making it!”

“Change of plans,” Taako shrugs. “Use the belts, get stuff from that takeout place on Tesseralia. Barold and Krav can go.”

“Taako, you want to use our highly advanced, extremely complicated--”

“Probably illegal,” Kravitz puts in.

“ _Planer-hopping_ belts, to get fantasy takeout?”

Taako just looks at them.

“Yep,” Barry sighs. “Alright. “Back in half an hour. Let’s go, boss.”

“I’m calling it in to the Raven Queen,” Kravitz says as they head towards Barry’s basement lab, which Kravitz has taken to adamantly pretending doesn’t exist.

“Tell Big Momma I say hi!” Lup hollers at their retreating backs.

_"Please stop calling her that."_

“Now, this is a flavor emergency,” Lup says, ignoring Kravitz entirely as she turns back to Angus. “Let’s see if we can whip up something simple.”

She and Angus get to work as Taako ushers the rest of them unceremoniously out into the garden, at one point threatening to levitate Merle into the sky. Davenport distracts Mavis and Mookie with illusions of flying snakes, while Lucretia perches on the porch railing and starts idly tossing stones to Magnus. They turn it into a game, Lucretia throwing them in ways that require more and more outrageous dives, Merle occasionally knocking away the stones with a stretch of his soulwood arm. Their family sufficiently out of the way, Taako returns to the kitchen to find a frustrated Lup and resigned Angus.

“I don’t get it,” Lup says. “I’m watching him put the spices in with my own eyes, but it comes out tasting like nothing!”

“I see,” Taako says, steepling his fingers and staring Angus down. “Time to call out… the big guns.” He tosses back his sequined shawl and dramatically whips out a small, compact mirror, the surface shimmering emerald. “Joaquin! JOAQUIN!”

The mirror is still for a few moments before Joaquin’s voice floats out of it. “Taako?”

“Joaquin, it’s a _flavor emergency_ ,” Taako declares.

“It’s four in the morning.”

“How’s that shithead brother, Joaquin?” Lup asks.

“Hello, sir!” Angus calls.

“Hey, Lup. Manuel’s still a shithead.” At this point, Joaquin is well familiar with all of the seven birds. “Oh shit, is that Angus? What’s up little dude?”

“No time for chitchat! It’s a flavor emergency, Joaquin! We need you to coach Angus through making a taco.”

“Again, it’s four in the morning.”

_"Flavor has no schedule, Joaquin.”_

Loud groaning and shuffling from the mirror, while Taako and Lup busy themselves getting the ingredients to the recipe they’ve both learned by heart, after it saved the world. Wearily, Joaquin takes Angus through the process step by step, although Taako makes him add twice the spices they usually would.  
Finally, although Lup had to threaten Magnus and Merle with fireballs if they didn’t stay out of the kitchen, the tacos are done. Cautiously, Taako and Angus lift them to their mouths, with groans of disappointment after biting down.

“Still nothing?” Lup asks.

“I told you, sirs,” Angus says sadly.

“What, what happened?” Joaquin says.

“This flavor emergency has just been upgraded,” Taako says darkly. “To a flavor disaster.” He snaps the compact shut to punctuate the statement, and then rapidly opens it again. “Thanks Joaquin, talk to you Thursday?”

“Sure, Taako,” comes Joaquin’s voice, although his is punctuated by a yawn. “Maybe not at four am.”

Satisfied, Taako snaps the compact shut again, and rounds on Angus and Lup. “Alright, chico. Spill it. What’s going on?”

“Well, sir,” Angus sighs, possibly for dramatic effect. Taako isn’t sure but he’s proud of him anyway. “It’s probably the McDonald family curse.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako and Angus do some recon and research, guest starring Angus's uncomfortably hot 5x-great uncle and Lucretia battling a library monster!

Angus, in true Taaco family style, refuses to say anything more until the following day, when he and Taako are in Neverwinter, standing in front of the McDonald family mansion, Angus’s ancestral home. His birth parents have long since cleared out, after what Taako delicately refers to as “The Discussion”, and everyone else refers to as “That Time Where Taako Threatened To Beat Up Angus’s Birth Parents For Being Dicks”. The place is empty now, Angus choosing to live with Taako and Kravitz, and occasionally jumping to Magnus and Lucretia, when he’s not at school.

 

Angus, of course, still has the keys.

 

He unlocks the massive front gate with appropriate gravitas, probably picked up from Lucretia, and leads Taako down the gravel entrance road into the massive, dusty house. It’s dark and grim inside, and Taako again tries to figure out how such a soul-sucking place could have produced his beautiful magic boy. He shrugs, chalking it up to Angus being smart enough to get out as soon as possible, and follows Angus to the portrait hall, because _of course_ this place has a portrait hall. He doesn’t realize he said that last part out loud until Angus laughs, the sound echoing eerily in the empty mansion.

 

“We’re an old family, sir,” he says, casting Produce Flame and pacing down the generations of dour-faced McDonalds. They walk under the cold glares until Angus stops in front of a portrait of a dark-skinned man with gold-brown eyes, who looks more uncomfortable than stern.

 

“Hachi machi,” Taako mutters, eyeing the man over. “Not a bad-lookin dude to have for an ancestor, Ango.”

 

“Please don’t talk about my great-great-great-great-great grandfather that way, sir.”

 

“How do you remember how many greats it’s supposed to be?”

 

“I know the name and biographies of every portrait in this hall, sir.”

 

Taako files that somewhat disturbing information away for later, along with a renewed determination to find Angus’s birth parents and make a few more… _clarifications_ , while Angus presses ahead.

 

“Theodolphus McDonald, died aged thirty-six,” Angus recites. “He was the originator of the McDonald Family Curse, although he never recorded who exactly he pissed off enough to curse us, or how. Flavorless food has been the only thing our family’s been able to cook ever since.”

 

“No wonder you started crying when I made you that mac n cheese.”

 

“It was good pasta, sir.”

 

“Alright, boychik, settle down,” Taako mutters, investigating the portrait more closely. When that doesn’t reveal anything except a lavender spring in Theodolphus’s lapel, he shakes his head and turns back to Angus. “Let’s get out of here. All this neglect and shit is gonna give _me_ the McDonald Family Stick Up My Ass.”

 

“I don’t have a stick up my ass, sir!”

 

“Eeeh, okay.”

 

“Taako!”

 

“Haven’t you ever tried to fix this before?” Taako asks when they’re back on the street.

 

“I was never allowed to cook when I lived here, sir, and after I left--” Angus shrugs, far too blasé for having lived on his own from the age of eight. “Well, I didn’t have a lot of time for cooking. I was too busy checking things out, solving crimes, and cracking clues!”

 

“Okay Ango,” Taako sighs, ruffling his hair in exactly the way Angus hates, because he can never get it to lie flat after he does it. “So do some detective work. Where do we start?”

 

“Well, there’s not a whole lot of information on Theodolphus,” Angus says, trying vainly to fix his hair with one hand while pulling out his detective notebook with the other. He flips back, giving up on the hair, to well before the Rockport Limited case. He shows Taako the page, with only a few bullet points in Angus’s neat, childish handwriting. “He didn’t seem to have done much with his life, besides cursing the whole family.”

 

Taako inspects the list, absorbing the information with a quick glance. The man was twenty-six, loved music, and last anyone heard of him, he had been going into the forests just outside Neverwinter’s limits. They’d found his body a few weeks later.

 

“Maybe start there?” Angus suggests.” Maybe there’s a powerful magic user, or an artifact in those woods!”

 

“Slow down there kiddo, we gotta check some shit out first,” Taako says, grimacing.

 

“Sir, you don’t mean--”

 

“I’m already regretting this, but yes. We have to… go to the library.”

~

The Neverwinter library is the most extensive in Faerûn, and, to Taako’s continued displeasure, was funded entirely by Lucretia and the Bureau of Benevolence. She’s there, because of course she is, one of the heroes of the multiverse shelving books like an unpaid intern. She’s dressed casually today, black pants and a slim-fitting blue shirt, a bright red hibiscus (probably from Merle, _gross_ ) sharp against her white hair. She’s balancing high on a ladder when she spots them, a smile splitting her face at Angus, pulling back into caution when she sees Taako behind him.

 

“Hello, ma’am!” Angus says brightly, fairly bounding over to her ladder.

 

She slides down the ladder, spry even with twenty years stolen. She doesn’t have to lean down much to embrace him anymore, a fact which Taako is adamantly refusing to acknowledge. “Hello, Angus,” she says warmly. She looks up at Taako, and he can as good as see the guilt surging up in her eyes. “Taako,” she says cautiously.

 

He breezes right past her wary greeting. “So, boychik, where are we looking for info on the Neverwinter Wood?”

 

“I can bring you a few books from the restricted section,” Lucretia says, shoulders straightening. “I gather you’re looking for very specific information?”

 

“That’s right, ma’am,” Angus says, giving a side-eyed glare at Taako that he would be proud of if he wasn’t busy staring Lucretia down. “Preferably about a magic user, or powerful artifact, active about two hundred years ago.”

 

Lucretia nods and waves for a young half orc woman to take over her shelving. She leads them to a small table while Angus updates her on his latest case, and Taako pointedly ignores her, not even acknowledging the table until Lucretia rolls her eyes and heads for the restricted section.

 

“You don’t have to treat her that way, you know,” Angus says quietly.

 

“I’ll treat her like I want to,” Taako says flatly.

 

Angus wisely chooses not to pursue the issue, as the same half orc woman gives them a bundle of yellowing papers and a thick book entitled “Neverwinter Wood: A Primer”. Angus takes the book while Taako pages through the papers, but none of them go back far enough, nor do they mention anything about a magic user or object that dealt out such specific curses. Lucretia returns twenty-five minutes later, clothes rumpled, flower askew, and a faintly bleeding scratch on her cheek.

 

“Ma’am, what happened?” Angus exclaims, jumping up.

Taako stays where he is, hating that his ears swiveled forward at the sight of her looking like she’d been in a fight.

 

Lucretia just smiles faintly and drops a small stack of dusty papers on the table in between them. “There’s a reason the restricted section is restricted,” she says calmly. “That’s all I could find in the time frame you wanted.”

 

“Thank you ma’am.” Angus pulls out his stone of farspeech. “Should we call Merle for that scratch on your cheek? It’s still bleeding.”

 

“You’d want a real healer for that,” Taako snorts, and tries (unsuccessfully) to ignore how Lucretia smiles.

 

“Thank you, but no,” she says, keeping any uncomfortable emotions out of her voice with admirable skill. “We have a first-aid kit under the checkout desk. It’s just a scratch.”

 

“Okay,” Angus says doubtfully, but he puts his stone away and instead pulls the papers towards him. Taako leans over to skim the pages too. It’s a diary, maybe, or a travel log, outlining the adventures of a human man named Tom, who eventually settled in the village that would become Rockport. Before he reached there, he traveled throughout the Neverwinter Wood, recording all sorts of strange creatures and magical artifacts and now-extinct plants.

 

“This might be something,” Angus says after a few minutes, tapping at a page. Most of it is taken up by a scratchy black pencil illustration of a cave, surrounded by wildflowers. “All it says is that there’s a powerful witch who lives in this cave, and this.” He runs a finger along the word, thickly written and underlined twice : AVOID. “Sir?”

 

“This might be something, huh kiddo?” Taako says thoughtfully. “Better than any other lead we have anyway.”

 

“Sir? Don’t these flowers look familiar?”

 

“I don’t know shit about flowers, chico.”

 

“We could ask Merle.”

 

“ _No_.”

 

Angus tucks his shit-eating grin away and examines the flowers again, and then snaps his fingers. “That’s it!”

 

“You’ve figured out how not to be a giant nerd?”

 

“A giant nerd who will one day take your magic throne, sir.”

 

“I would end you before that day comes, little man.”

 

“Bold of you to assume you could, sir.”

 

Taako twirls his wand menacingly, but Angus just pushes the page towards him. “Look, sir. The flowers. They’re lavender, just like the lavender in Theodolphus’s lapel!”

 

“Nice!”

 

“We should wait until tomorrow,” Angus says, squinting at the late evening light streaming through the windows. “It’s always best to do detective work on a full night’s sleep!”

 

“Says you.”

 

“I am the world’s greatest detective, sir!”

 

Before Taako can retort with a truly spectacular putdown that he definitely had ready, his stone buzzes at Kravtiz’s frequency. “What’s up bone daddy?” he says, enjoying the shocked gasp from the little old ladies at the table nearby.

 

“Please pick a different term of endearment for me.”

 

“Nope,” he says, drawing out the vowels and popping the p.

 

Kravtiz’s patient sigh echoes through the stone before he speaks again. “Lup is demanding you both come home. Apparently Barry told her that Angus has never had spaghetti before.”

 

Taako rounds on Angus. “What do you mean, _you’ve never had spaghetti before_?” Angus just shrugs before Taako pulls up the stone again. “We’re on our way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 2/3!
> 
> as always, comments/kudos fuel me. thank you guys so much for the comments you've left so far!!
> 
> okay i love you bye!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Taako and Angus find the source of the curse, and figure out how to stop it. Maybe? There might also be the origin of the town of Tom Bodetts in there.

Angus loves spaghetti, and they have it packed in specially enchanted boxes when they prepare to enter Neverwinter Wood the following day. The trees start out widely spaced and friendly, golden sunlight pouring through the many gaps in the leaves. As they move further in, the wood darkens, the deep green leaves moving closer together and choking off the sun. Most of the light now comes from slightly glowing flowers, a luminescent blue dappled with white. Small animals rustle in the underbrush, and Angus, for some reason, steers them off the established path, so they have to hack their way through vines and bushes. It’s the first time Taako’s used his short sword in probably a decade.

It’s not as wild as it was in the original Tom’s time, but Taako still has to bust out a level six Disintegrate on a magical boar who charges Angus unexpectedly.

“That was a close one, sir,” Angus pants, having crossbowed the shit out of the weakened boar. He has a slight slash across one arm, but before Taako can fully panic he’s already wrapping it with practiced ease.

“You okay, kiddo?”

“Sure thing, sir,” Angus says, too brightly for his bleeding arm. “I’ve had worse!”

Taako forces himself to take a deep breath and not focus on Angus’s past. “Any idea of where we’re going? We’ve been wandering in these woods for hours.”

“We haven’t been wandering,” Angus says, showing Taako a map that Taako has sworn he’s never seen. “We’ve been following this map I made last night based on the papers Miss Lucretia found us.”

“You passed out from a pasta coma right after dinner boychik, when did you make this?”

“You slept until noon.”

“Elves don’t need sleep, Agnes.”

“Horseshit, sir.”

“What does your little map say now?”

“I don’t think we’re too far, sir. Look at the ground.”

“What about it?”

“It’s starting to get rockier. There might be caves nearby.” He stops and Taako nearly crashes into him. “Look, sir!”

“At what, the bloody nose you just gave me?”

“No,” Angus has the gall to roll his eyes, and Taako makes a mental note to try and keep him away from Lucretia, who is clearly giving him bad lessons in behavior. “The flowers! It’s lavender, just like the painting, and the drawings from the travel journal!”

The purple flowers gleam in suspiciously plentiful patches of sunlight as they go, and now that Angus has pointed them out, Taako is seeing them everywhere. A few moments later, and they reach a clearing, with a familiar cave poking out of the ground, the darkness within not at all illuminated by the sudden sun.

Taako and Angus exchange a look, and Taako silently moves in front of Angus, wand out. Angus scoffs behind him, but quietly, as they approach the cave.

“I seeeee,” a voice comes floating out, old and creaky, with an undercurrent of malice. “It’s taken over two hundred years, but at last a McDonald has come to repent of their ancestor’s misdeeds.”

“Hello, ma’am?” Angus calls from behind Taako’s arm. “We were just wondering what exactly my ancestor did to deserve this curse of a flavorless existence?”

A few moments, and then a scratching noise from deep within the cave. Taako’s fingers tighten on his wand and he sees Angus do the same as he steps up beside him, pushing up his glasses with his other hand.

Together, they watch as a bent-backed crone shuffles out of the cave, carefully not crossing the threshold. She’s ancient, with a cracked pale face that’s more wrinkles than skin. Her stringy gray hair flicks back and forth as she bobs her head, swishing over milk-blind eyes and a leering mouth, a few yellowing teeth still holding on. She’s wearing what appears to be a sack, colorless and huge.

“Hachi machi, I don’t know what to point out first,” Taako says, astonished.

“Hello, ma’am,” Angus says again, politely. “What exactly did my ancestor do?”

“You should know what he did, young McDonald,” the crone says in a scratchy, smug voice, pointing a crooked, yellowing finger at them both. “It should have been passed down in your family history for all these years.”

“Nope, sure wasn’t,” Taako puts in, narrowing his eyes. “Now how’s about you just lift that little curse and you can go back to eating cave bats or whatever it is you do. Sound good?”

The witch lets out a horrible laugh, like a cross between Magnus’s stomach when he ate the Philosopher’s Stone and putting broken glass in a blender.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” she sneers. “The young McDonald has to break the curse.”

“And how do I do that?” Angus asks. “I am the world’s greatest detective. And my name is Angus, actually.”

“Oh? And is that how you found my cave again?”

“Following a diary of some thug named Tom, actually,” Taako says.

“Tom, was it? I remember him. He tried to steal from me too. I cursed his descendants to all look just like him, and to share his name, no matter how they felt on the matter.”

“Well, that explains Rockport,” Taako mutters.

“What do you want me to do, ma’am?” Angus interrupts. “I’d like to able to cook food with that good good flavor, please.”

“Your ancestor, young McDonald, attempted to steal from me,” the crone says, sweeping her gnarled hands at the lavender flowers bobbing in the breeze around them.

“Said he wanted to make a special tea for his boyfriend. Too bad I caught him first.”

“Did you kill him after you cursed him?” Angus asked. “He’s the only one who died so young.”

“Nonsense!” the witch snaps. “I don’t kill, young McDonald.”

“My name is Angus, ma’am.”

“You want to lift the curse?” she says, eyes glinting eerily even with the blindness. “Well then.”

She waves a hand, magic emanating from her in waves. Taako raises a protective shield on instinct, ignoring the fact that this is a spell he learned from Lucretia. The crone just cackles in response, revealing her spell: she’s conjured a full kitchen set, complete with a stove, a sink, an oven, and all the counterpace any chef could want, all on a tiled floor, incongruous among the trees surrounding them.

“Let’s see if you can earn it, young McDonald,” she says, and settles on a rock she conjures with another wave of her hand, blind eyes on Angus.

“Sir?” Angus says uncertainly, lowering his wand. “What should I do?”

“Just do what I would do, bubbeleh,” Taako says as comfortingly as he can. “Cook for the old bat. Go nuts, my man. Impress her.”

Angus takes a steadying breath and stows his wand. “Okay sir. Here I go.”

He steps into the kitchen, and the instant his foot hits the tiled floor, a transparent bubble pops up, enclosing him and the entire kitchen. He yelps in shock, soundlessly, and bangs a hand against the bubble.

“Angus!” Taako rounds on the witch, already channeling his last sixth level spell slot. “Let him go!”

“The young McDonald will complete this task on his own, or not at all,” the crone says, not at all concerned with the wand Taako is pointing in her face. Taako almost unleashes another Disintegrate on her then and there, but a careful series of knocks distracts him. It’s the same one Angus uses on the wall of his bedroom to indicate that he’s okay after he’s woken up from a nightmare. Taako turns to Angus to see him do an exaggerated pantomime, indicating that he’s going to try.

There’s nothing left for Taako to do but pace, anxiety levels rising as Angus chops, stirs, heats, and bakes, adding unknown spices and extra turns, eyes narrowed in concentration.

Taako has considered and just barely held himself back from blasting the crone about six times, which he considers quite the improvement, when a tone dings and the bubble comes down. The kitchen shimmers out of existence, leaving Angus carefully holding a round pie dish in oven mitted hands, berry-scented steam rising from the top. There’s flour covering his Taako Brand apron, and smears of bright red juice, flour and sugar pasted on his face and in his hair, but the pie itself is immaculate, not a bit of dough out of place. He approaches the witch and places the pie delicately on a table she conjures.

The presentation is impeccable, the top crust intricately braided with little stars patterned into the outer circle. She cuts into the pie with a bone-handled dagger produced from somewhere in her sack dress, releasing a mouth-watering strawberry rhubarb smell into the air. The strawberries are bright and oozing juice, the rhubarb clearly maintaining just the right amount of crunch. Angus seems to have added an extra texture component, a crumble along the edges of the pie that somehow hasn’t soaked up the juice enough to get soggy.

Taako and Angus watch together as the witch bites into her slice, chewing carefully with her limited teeth. She smacks her lips, loud and wet, and shoves the rest of the slice into her mouth in one go, the juice staining her wrinkles a bright red.

“Not so bad, young McDonald,” she says after she swallows, her throat moving like a snake’s gullet. “But not enough for me to lift my curse. You’re just going to have to stay here and keep cooking for me, until I’m satisfied.”

Taako moves to draw on her, but Angus stops him with a single finger.

“Actually, ma’am,” he says quietly, star-tipped wand in hand. “My name isn’t young McDonald.”

The witch just laughs, and opens her mouth to speak, but Angus cuts her off.

“It’s Angus Taaco,” he says, and blasts her with Magic Missile.

 

*

 

They return triumphant, Angus still toting the remains of the strawberry rhubarb pie, both of them covered in lavender petals and wood witch dust.

“She was good at curses but she couldn’t take a lot of hits, could she sir?” Angus says cheerily as they walk through the door.

“That’s how we do,” Taako says, a satisfied smirk on his lips as Lup takes in their appearance and Angus’s grin. Barry walks in as they’re standing in the doorway, blinks at them a few times, and walks straight back out.

“So I take it you won?” Lup asks as she waves them into the kitchen.

“Did we!” Angus says, bouncing on the stool a little.

“Ango here blasted a wood witch with Magic Missile and I’ve never been prouder in my life,” Taako says, wiping a fake tear, or possibly wood witch dust, from his eye.

“Sounds like quite the afternoon,” Kravitz comments, leaning into the kitchen. “Did you say wood witch?”

“In the Neverwinter Wood, Mr. Kravitz,” Angus pipes up. “She cursed one of my ancestors with the inability to flavor any kind of food, but we got her to lift the curse before she exploded.”

“In the Neverwinter Wood?” Kravitz asks. “That sounds familiar to me. Were there lavender flowers around, by any chance?” Taako and Angus stare as one at Kravitz, who responds by slowly raising his eyebrows. “What?”

“Krav, was your name in life, by chance, Theodolphus?” Taako asks, delighted.

“Theodolphus?” Lup repeats.

“Yes, I believe so,” Kravitz says thoughtfully.

“Sir, it was you!” Angus says, shocked and betrayed.

“You’re Ango’s great-whatever grandfather?!”

“Well, not exactly,” Kravitz says, bone flickering through his cheeks as he becomes increasingly uncomfortable. “I never had children, per say. I was more of an uncle? Before I became a reaper.”

“Kravitz you have to make something right now,” Taako says, shoving him towards the kitchen.

“Dove, your face, and your clothes--”

“It’s fine,” Taako snaps, cleaning himself (and Angus) with a wave of his hand. “Go on, bones, cook me something. The curse is lifted.”

Uncomfortably, Kravitz sets about making a simple stew under Taako’s watchful eyes, Angus’s curious ones, and Lup’s unabashed delight. It doesn’t take long for him to pronounce it ready, and he offers the spoon to Taako.

Taako tastes it, and his mouth drops open.

“Krav, how?”

Lup swoops in and takes the spoon, tasting the stew. She almost immediately lets out a cackle that has Barry running up the stairs from his not-a-necromancy-basement-lab.

“There’s no flavor in this at all!” she yells, tears of laughter running down her cheeks. “What is even going on anymore?”

“It’s, uh, not a curse, love,” Kravitz says, now definitely more bone than flesh. “I’m just… Like That.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter! this was my first multi-chapter fic, so please let me know what you think!
> 
> (idk how the Bodett thing got in there, lmao)
> 
> as always, kudos/comments fuel me
> 
> thanks i love you bye!

**Author's Note:**

> hey what's up it's me cha'girl, back at it again with my bullshit
> 
> this isn't set in my visible bonds AU, just a fun, post canon story that somehow turned into 5k. I'll be posting it in 3 chapters tho, releasing them every couple of days.
> 
> This is a birthday fic for Sirrah, check her stuff at succinct abilities on ao3!
> 
> As always, I feed off kudos/comments
> 
> thanks i love you bye!


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